Funding cuts ‘block disabled people from home care environment’

It is feared that the NHS’s new care funding caps will keep disabled people “interned” in care homes and will prevent them from living in a home care environment.

A watchdog claims that the NHS’s plans to cap care funding outside hospitals will stop people from living independently at home because they won’t have enough money to pay for their care needs.

The plans are set to be rolled out across 44 CCGs to start with and disability groups have told a national newspaper that they been advised that if they cannot live on their newly capped home care funding then they will need to move to a residential home.

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The European Human Rights Commission (EHRC) believes that the new caps fail to account for peoples’ individual circumstances. It added that this may be a breach of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The EHRC has now written to CCGs asking them to outline their policies so it can understand how the plans will be practiced. If the CCGs fail to co-operate the EHRC will take legal action.

The letter states: “We are currently assessing CCG NHS Continuing Healthcare policies and believe that in some instances these policies may not comply with obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010),” according to The Independent.

“In particular, we believe that some policies may breach individuals’ rights to a private family life and to independent living which are protected by Article 8 of ECHR and by Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and that s149 of the Equality Act may not have been properly discharged.”

NHS Clinical Commissioners, which represents CCGs across the UK, admitted to the newspaper that the “limited budgets” CCGs are allocated has meant that in order for disabled people to remain at home they are being asked to “top up” the difference themselves.